Metroid - In Dark Serenity
by Nazgul1698
Summary: A happy brief one-shot about romance, and love, and the meaning of life, and the bright brave future that awaits us all.


Metroid: In Dark Serenity

* * *

(All hail *****, the most honest philosopher of the modern era. All hail the *** *****. All hail ******.

All hail my brother, *******. All hail **-*****.)

* * *

She rested her head against his strong chest, toying with his musculature, breathing in his cologne. Her bare body was pressed against his, leaving her vulnerable, making her trust in him obvious.

She opened her mouth halfway. Uttered a few sounds that were more sound than word, digital and oscillating, and the light in the room got brighter. Bright enough for her to make out the shape of his body, bright enough to illuminate the worn stained wood in the room, and the disarray of the bed. Of course it was disarrayed, with how much they'd used it.

"Hayek," she said, stroking at his bicep with a lithe finger. "You never did tell me… what kind of a name is Hayek?"

He smiled. Adjusted his body so that he looked down at her. "Not Hey-ek. _Hi_-ek. Like, high explosives. Kaboom."

Somehow that made her laugh, a sound like distant tinkling bells. It went on for just a second longer than was conventional; she caught his glance and stopped laughing at once. Logged the reaction for future reference and shut her eyes, pressing herself against him. That was her way of saying sorry.

For a moment, they were silent, each enjoying the other's warmth, each enjoying the other's company. She was tuned to him and in time, he had become tuned to her. He knew her idiosyncrasies, her perfect imperfections, those that made her a woman, not a product from a factory line. Like that little dimple in her left cheek that appeared whenever she smiled.

"I don't think I've thanked you enough," Hayek said. He wasn't speaking to her so much as he was speaking to himself, and the stained wood ceiling just a few feet overhead. "Before you got here, I was… in a strange place, mentally. I was… really losing my mind, at the time. Telling day from night, or one week from the next, or one month from the next, I kept asking myself…"

He looked down and found her staring at him. Positively staring at him, unblinking, analyzing his every word, his every movement. In the end, it was he who blinked and looked away.

"Kept asking yourself… what?" she said.

It wasn't a demand. But he knew he had to answer. He managed a smile.

"Kept asking myself when things would get better. And they did… and here we are. Things were so dark back then, so quiet, almost serene in a way… things are louder now, but so much… brighter."

With that he lightly tapped the tip of her nose so that she twitched it like a rabbit. Another one of her idiosyncrasies.

He smiled. A smile that fell, just a little, in the moments that followed.

"Are you going to keep doing that… you know, next?"

"Hmm…" She propped herself up on her elbows, so that any blow he took would be softened by the softness of her chest.

"It depends," she said eventually. "It's not like resetting a machine. Think of it more as… wiping of the slate. If you look hard enough, what was written before is still there. Even if it's a little faint."

She kissed his hand and again stared at him, analyzing his reaction.

"A little faint," he repeated. "So… is that what we are? Or what we will be?"

"That's how it works. You knew that getting into this," she said, with an edge in her voice.

He didn't respond for some time. Eventually, he just apologized in a very distant, very faint voice. She seemed to accept that and snuggled up to him again. But although her eyes were shut, she kept one eye on the invisible little clock, inexorably ticking down towards zero. And now it was getting close…

She looked at him again, at his form, so strong, so taut, yet now, so spent after everything they had done. There wasn't time to do it again… they would never do it again.

"But maybe," she said, "there's time for this…"

She kissed her way down his chest. Then his torso. Then lower, then lower still. There were no trousers nor underclothes to remove; in seconds, she had him in her mouth as she looked up at him with the piercing blue eyes that he had come to adore.

And yet… yet..

"You're… not into this," she said. "You don't… want this." She let him fall, limp and helpless.

"It's not that," he said. "I want it. So… very, very badly. I want… you. Forever."

For a moment, she seemed to consider it. They had done great things together; mementos of their efforts covered the walls. There was the cloth headdress of the man who had terrorized the free world for a decade. There was the machinegun they had stolen from a nascent branch of the services that had threatened to go rogue. Adam hadn't been too hot on them keeping it until she had promised him, cross her heart, cross her fingers, that it was deactivated. And above the headboard were their weapons, the deadly tools that had made them unstoppable.

She shut her eyes. Opened them again and stared at the weapons. Whispered a few words in that incomprehensible digital language of hers. It was as if a switch was thrown, deactivating the energy cells in each of them.

Then she stood up, neither slowly nor hastily, and canted her head down at him, one eyebrow raised.

"I'm sorry, Hayek," she said. "You're enough at risk of harming yourself that I can't let you stay armed… but you're not so much of a risk that I can't stay any longer. That wouldn't be fair to—"

"I don't need to know his name," Hayek said. He stared at her. Positively stared at her, unblinking, analyzing her every word, her every movement. In the end, it was she who blinked and looked away.

Was it an idiosyncrasy? Was it real, or as real as she could be?

Maybe it didn't matter. In a second, the slim blonde bounty hunter was gone, replaced by a bearded man in a leather jacket. The only similarity between them were their eyes… they both had the same, brilliantly blue eyes.

"A wiping of the slate," Hayek heard himself say. "If you look hard enough, what was written before is still there. Even if it's a little faint."

The man canted his head. Followed the path of his gaze to his own eyes. There was a holographic ripple and then blue was replaced with brown.

The two men stared at each other for a moment. Maybe Hayek wanted to say something. In the end, he never said.

"Take care of yourself, kid," the bearded man said, turning on his heel. Yet he paused in Hayek's doorstep, faced him over his shoulder and mouthed, "Kaboom."

And then he was gone, leaving Hayek nude in bed with the strangest, saddest smile on his face… alone, once again in dark serenity.


End file.
